[SIC] 299: Temporary Secretary

Volume Six, Number Thirty Nine

Ben Dietz

May 30, 2024

This time: [SIC] Talks with Axios’s Sara Fischer, plus an appearance on the Day One FM podcast. Plus The [SIC] Weekly digest of pertinent developments, compiled and published free on Thursdays to 5983 subscribers who’ve opted in. [SIC] is a one-person operation that grows exclusively by via word-of-mouth. Pass it along to people you like.

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Corollary Sources this week: After School/ The New Statesman / The Future Party /Ben-Evans / 1440 / Beat Connection / Champion Weekly/ Public Announcement/

Contributors this week: Piers Fawkes, Celeste Blewitt, Iolanda Carvalho, Molly Raskin, and Kate Lee

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Hi all,

Lots this week, starting off with my [SIC] Talks conversation yesterday with Axios’s media and tech correspondent Sara Fischer. Sara and I met nearly a decade ago and she instantly impressed me as somebody who not only got the granular details but also the big picture - ie how the media sausage actually gets made. She’s also got a somewhat unusual background for a reporter - she started on the commercial side of the business, which I think should be a much more common path than it is. Being able to think through multiple angles of approach is a strong suit for her, IMO - and so it was a treat to shut up and let her tune me (and you all) to the wavelengths she’s monitoring right now. Do yourself a favor and listen.

I also got to be a guest recently - the Day One Agency folks invited me to join them on the Day One FM pod: You can check it out here. I talk a bit about Superformats, the whole [SIC] creation process, and the state of media now. Super fun conversation. Thanks to Eli, Trey, Clara and Jacques (and the whole d1a gang).

And of course there’s a new episode of Culture Club Show with Jeff and me talking yesterday about VCs giving out fashion advice among other extemporaneity.

Ok - you’ll be sick of me by that point, so here’s some other listening stuff to cleanse your palette: ULYSSA made a tape called TOE HUNTERS, limited to 100 cassettes that I listened to on Bandcamp compiling this week’s digest. Somebody describes it as a tour de force in a Ford Taurus. It’s very smooth and goofy. Smoofy. If you’re not a tape person it’s on Spotify too. Also: Under The K Bridge - Brooklyn, NY 5th May 2024 by Four Tet is on Soundcloud. And Dublin’s Fontaines D.C.’s select Music To Get Tattooed To gets the Monster Children treatment. And there’s: The season seven finale of Herb Sundays 117: Seth Troxler is An elegant and accessible playlist from the globetrotting Detroit DJ. And the ‘sletters namesake “Temporary Secretary” is so weird and great.

Last thing, speaking of weird and great: the painter Cynthia Talmadge is a favorite of mine - I discovered her through her Soap Opera Title Card series at the great Halsey McKay Gallery back in 2018, and she was the catalyst for the “5 Questions For” series that I’ve been threatening to resurrect. Cynthia’s got a new show called
Sail-by Salute about the wreck of the Costa Concordia opening Saturday at 56 Henry Street and running through August 2, 2024. The opening is Saturday at 6p. I can’t go, but you should.

Ok, now the links.

[SIC] 299: Temporary Secretary

The Macro Narrative

Let’s kick off with Matt Klein’s Presence in the Mosh Pit. Remedies for our digital moment / Zine
From their it’s over to Molly’s: Joel Golby’s why we’re obsessed with rating systems / The Guardian
Back to Molly: Kyle Chayka on The New Generation of Online Culture Curators / The New Yorker
Then to W. David Marx’s Culture is an Ecosystem: A Manifesto Towards a New Cultural Criticism (1) / Culture: An Owner’s Manual
And from Kate: The Art of Scaling Taste. How MSCHF turns irreverent ideas into a real business / Napkin Math
Unrelated, but also the wave: Zyncore: One in five footballers using snus / The Guardian
Five years too late but interesting: How the Aperol Spritz became the "it" drink of summer / Sherwood
Corollary: The Biden campaign is hiring for a "partner manager, content and meme pages." / Biden Harris
Prime Source Material? What is MAGA Communism, the online ideology platformed by Tucker Carlson? / The Guardian
And Ted Cruz argues that paying student athletes is a federal issue / NYT
While London Moves to Revive Its Reputation as a Financial Hub” / NYT
Ergo? From Piers: “I think the answer is yes if WWD is writing about it” [ Are the Cotswolds Turning Into the Hamptons? ] / WWD
Back to the Big Smoke: This Is What Black London Nightlife Looks Like Now / Service95
Across the pond: How the Chicago area gets its news “This survey of 1,004 people… can be taken as a microcosm for what is happening locally across the country / Medill
And back again: The party’s officially over at some of the world’s top travel destinations as officials discourage tourists/ The Future Party
Hence: Mystery travel, where customers swap planning a trip for the surprise of arriving in an unknown destination, is a rising trend / Axios
Related, from Josh: “Taking back the streets in Colombia's capital” [ Bogota Shuts Capital Streets to Cars at Weekends] The Guardian
Americans Are Thinking About Immigration All Wrong. Population growth, economic growth, and income growth can be mutually reinforcing / The Atlantic
From Celeste: Shipping Rates Spike As Businesses Expect More Red Sea Attacks’ / FT
‘Bookshelf wealth’ is the latest design trend capturing social media, encouraging people to display messy bookshelves to combat minimalist home styling / Canvas8
Also trending, from Molly: Why Solitude Is the Next Big Wellness Trend / Glamour
And Is wellness culture fuelling a health anxiety crisis? / Dazed
Blame The Industry That Ate America. The long and lurid history of lobbying / The Atlantic
Apropos, a couple WITI bangers: The Hostage Negotiation Edition Talking to the man who helped bring home Brittney Griner and Otto Warmbier / WITI
Corollary? The Tradeoffs Edition. On credit card fraud, NBA replays, and keeping the rhythm / WITI

Generationations

Gen Z Drives a Teen-Job Comeback/ Axios
And Gen Z app Soul is tackling China’s ‘friendship recession’ / Jing Daily
Meantime, the Millennial midlife crisis: It has arrived / The Cut
Case in point: “In my hagmaxxer era.” A new term just dropped that describes older women dating younger men/ Daily Dot
Hence? Many men in their 20s and 30s are increasingly using Viagra?
Cue: The Trials and Tribulations of Boymoms / The New Yorker
More questions: What Should You Do with Your Stuff before You Die? / Walrus
And How Much Inheritance Is Too Much? / The Atlantic

Platformations

From Piers: "Impactful framing" [Social media bosses are ‘the largest dictators’, says Nobel peace prize winner] / The Guardian
Elsewhere in dictation: Bob Lefsetz isn’t loving the government’s case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster / Lefsetz
Meanwhile, Google accidentally deleted the Cloud account of a large ($135bn AUM) Australian pension fund / Unisuper
And Amazon Returns Have Gone to Hell. What happened? / The Atlantic
Elsewhere: As X’s turbulence continues, can alternative social platforms catch marketers’ attention? / Digiday
Corollary: from Molly: They’re Ignoring MrBeast’s Rules of YouTube, and Thriving. Many creators bend over backward to optimize videos for the algorithm, but some are experimenting with another concept: trusting their audience / NYT
Twitch streamer Kai Cenat said he’s organizing a “creator Hunger Games” that will feature 50 creators using drones and combat suits / Tubefilter
Kai Cenat: Sundae Conversation with Caleb Pressley / YouTube
Also small-pilled: Apple is indie chic at heart / TechCrunch

Stylistics

The End Of Merch. Suddenly, once-highly coveted merch doesn’t hit like it used to / GQ
Actually? [SIC] Talks alums Ana Andjelic and Eugene Rabkin disagree. Merch is not dead. It's literally everywhere. In fact: Everything is Merch/ The Business of Sociology
So, from Molly: How to Make Beauty Merch That Matters / Business of Fashion
Corollary? Fashion is trash. Digital dumpster dressing / Dirt
From Celeste: “Such an evocative piece on perfume,” [The Private Life Of Perfume] / Town & Country
Elsewhere: The Genius of Deborah Vance's 'Hacks' Wardrobe / Back Row
Also from the 90s: Abercrombie Raises Outlook, Extending ‘90s Fashion Comeback / BoF
Meantime, Zac Posen is betting on celebrity at Gap. Can it work? / Vogue Business
While Dune’s ‘desert core’ look hits China / Jing Daily
From Celeste: Susie Cave developed an iconic brand under the radar [The Vampires Wife Changed Fashion] / Vogue UK
Also: How Stone Island reset the fashion compass A new Dior collaboration cements the cult Italian label as a global luxury player / FT
But Can Balenciaga Redeem Under Armour? / Highsnobiety
Loewe and On's weird logo mashup could start a new design trend / Creative Bloq
In the meantime, For-Scale’s great new Favorite Lamp Report: The Intellectual heir to Candle got me pondering/ For-Scale
More ponderous: Are microfactories the answer to making fashion on demand? / Vogue Business
Corollary: Dover Street Market’s new Paris location is making a radical and risky bet on indie labels / BoF
Also risky? Reebok Isn’t a ‘Hobby’ for Shaquille O’Neal / NYT

Culturations

Glen Powell revealed the existence of a Tom Cruise-created, six-hour-long video that teaches everything the star has learned about filmmaking… shown to friends and collaborators / Variety
Also revealed: a long list of stuff that Brian Cox hates / GQ
Corollary: John Mulaney Made the Best TV in A Long Time. We need more shows like "Everybody's in LA”/ The Melt
Elsewhere: Britney Spears and the generational shift in celebrity coverage / Nieman Lab
While New Jeans Are the Most Important Girl Group on the Planet / The FACE
Tho CD players could make a comeback thanks to K-pop girl group Aespa who their newalbum along with a small CD player for just over $100 they instantly sold out/ Korea Times
Unrelated: Keeping it reel: a look behind London’s independent cinema scene / FT
Speaking of looking: Camera Roll Orgy' features Hidden Gems by Renowned Photographers / Hypebeast
Corollary hidden gems; Celeb-voiced Erotica is the new frontier / Mashable
Apropos: OnlyTrolls: how football and OnlyFans collided / The FACE
More trolls: Hackers claim responsibility for Christie's cyberattack and threaten to release client data / The Art Newspaper
And more trolling: Faxlore: how being bored at work gave birth to an art movement / Dirt
Related? From Celeste: The Radical, Ravishing Rebirth Of Tracey Emin’ /The Guardian
But not: Alvaro Barrington: the artist bringing carnival and the Caribbean to Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries / The Art Newspaper
The Growing Legacy Of Skateboarding Tricks That Can't Be Landed / YouTube
And Mythologizing Failure / Simple Magic
Speaking of fails: Harry Styles is dressing like a finance bro now / Dazed
Elsewhere in new looks: Art Basel’s French iteration has a brand-new look / Monocle
Corollary: Malborough Gallery Sets Up a ‘Conversation’ Between Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, Two Masters of the Artistic Persona / NY Sun
Not brand new but interesting, from Molly: “A House Party In A Restaurant:” How Pop-Up Parties Are Taking Over New York Nightlife / Nylon
Also not new: The Death of Ringtones by naomi cannibal / YouTube
St Elmo’s Fire & the “Brats of Hollywood” Label / YouTube
Apropos of brats? ;) Apparently “U WILL COWER IN FEAR OF THE SHEER QUALITY OF THIS PODCAST EPISODE” Different Type Podcast (feat. Cavalier and billy woods) / Nersey

Technopolis

Anthropic has a fascinating paper that managed to get inside the ‘black box’ of an LLM [Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model] / Anthropic
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all seem to have favorite numbers / TechCrunch
Hence? Rethinking AI Analogies / BrXnd Dispatch
Case in point? AI Is a False God. The real threat with super intelligence is falling prey to the hype / The Walrus
Corollary: Metaverse Hauntology,“The metaverse is a never ending story” / Dirt
Also false and maybe dangerous: Celebrities are warning fans not to trust seemingly authentic videos and posts of them endorsing wellness products because many have been manipulated using AI / Axios
Corollary, from Iolanda: “It's not that funny, but I laughed so much with the kilotomato... “[Google’s AI Search Is Mocked For Bizarre Answers] / CNET
Hence? As discussed in [SIC Talks]: Financial Times CEO: News orgs “have leverage and should insist on payment” from AI companies / Press Gazette
Ergo: The Atlantic, Vox Media ink licensing, product deals with OpenAI / Axios

Media-tions

Carrying on from Technopolis: Amid a weak ad market and the threat of AI, media companies are shifting their strategies to depend more on readers' dollars and less on ads / Axios
But WTF is principal media? / Digiday
Meantime The New York Times' plans to correlate attention levels to other metrics / Digiday
From Iolanda: "the dream of unlimited content is beginning to sour, and we have never been more aware of what our attention gives others, but also, what it might cost us in the process." [The power of attention: defeating the monster] / Mediacat
Elsewhere: How Time's collectible covers make the case for a print comeback / Digiday
IE: Spin magazine returns to print / Axios
Apropos of that: Made You Look: The Power of Great Magazine Covers. Provocative design is still one of the best ways to slice through the digital noise / The Walrus
[SIC] Talks Alum Ryan Broderick gives an update on how it’s going for him in newsletterland / Garbage Day
Corollary: The [Tuesday] Media Diet with Julia Vitale from Airmail / WITI

Market / Influence

How Stephen King Changed Advertising Forever / Campaign Live
Also changing ads? WPP is adding Anthropic's Claude models to its AI platform / Digiday
Related: Gary Vaynerchuk on the ‘TikTokification’ of Social Media / Ad Age
Hence: Alcohol vendors at BottleRock want[ed] to be your Instagram backdrop / Times Herald
While China Cracks Down on Social Media Influencers Flaunting Lavish Lifestyles / BoF
More crackdown, from Molly: The Monopoly Case Against Ticketmaster, Explained / 404 Media
More mono-power: T-Mobile will acquire most of US Cellular's wireless operations / CNBC
Elsewhere: Big shout to [SIC] Homie Francine Li as Ipsy appoints new marketing chief / Retail Dive
While 100 Thieves is debuting a capsule collection created with adidas / Hypebeast
In the gaming industry, immersive integrations are winning the battle for marketing dollars — for now / Digiday
Related: Balenciaga, Hugo Boss bank on Web3 to boost customer loyalty / Jing Daily
And Sony has announced plans to expand its anime business / Monocle
While back home A $25,000 Jeep EV is coming to the U.S. ‘very soon,” / Quartz
Corollary to that: China’s new luxury marketing frontier: Mysticism. Stressed young Chinese white-collar workers are buying hard luxury items they believe bestow good luck / Jing Daily
Also kinda mystically totemic, from Molly: How Hampton Inn Built a Cult Around Its Free Waffles / WSJ
Behind Pabst’s Embrace of Alternative Marketing / AdAge
From Molly: Your favorite brand no longer cares about being woke / Vox
They just care about being alive. Hence: Havas Launches New Global Health Agency, Jacques / Haas

Eats, Drinks and Ephemera

Limited-time offers — like IHOP's blue raspberry pancakes tied to the movie "If," Chipotle's Chicken al Pastor and Burger King's 70th anniversary Birthday Pie Slice — are reinvigorating the restaurant industry / Axios
Speaking of invigorating: The next wave of alcohol CPG products is going to be hangover prevention / The Independent
To say nothing of the Annual Gloucestershire cheese chasing / Sky News
Oh also: Is steak a health food now? / GQ
Related: Americans love shrimp. Is it good for you? / NYT
Which brings us to, from Piers: “GM Overkill-“[WTF Is With the Pink Pineapples at the Grocery Store?!] / Wired
…And why we are gonna see anymore pink pineapples [Food Industry Launches 'Ferocious' Campaign Against Regulations on Ultraprocessed Foods] / Slashdot

The Natural (?!) World

No One Really Understands Clouds / The Atlantic
How rain can make you happier and healthier / BBC
Because? Over the last year, the average person experienced 26 extra days of abnormally high temperatures because of climate change / NYT
Also falling from the sky: North Korea drops trash balloons on South Korea / CNN
Back to the fight: Washington State Has Been Sitting on a Secret Weapon Against Climate Change / The Atlantic
While Electric Harps Are Orchestrating a Honey Bee Comeback / Reasons to be Cheerful
Related: The untapped wild potential of our gardens and parks / The Guardian
IE: See how the “tree lobster,” a rambunctious stick insect, escaped extinction / NYT
And from Celeste: Orange Juice Crisis Prompts Search For Alternative Fruit’ / FT
Here’s a discovery: Austrian man uncovers mammoth skeletons in his wine cellar / IFL Science
And The creators behind popular dog accounts will host Chonk Fest a 3-day dog event in Philly/ IG
Finally, weekend suggestion From Celeste: Sick Of Cornwall: Visit Cournouille / The Spectator